


vigil

by pheenick



Series: a light dusting of snow [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Study, Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Early Days, Gen, Guilt, Introspection, Quiet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pheenick/pseuds/pheenick
Summary: “Now thisss is just cruel, angel,” Crawly’s voice hisses from the branches. Aziraphale looks up, unsurprised. Human, again, though with a different set of robes. Long, elegant fingers splayed on rotting bark. Starburst-shaped burns on the very tips, black with a subtle hint of not-quite gold, but it’s what their human eyes can understand with their limited resources. “The humans I can understand.Theychose to eat the apple, but the flowers didn’t do anything. The vines, the shrubs. Nevermind the bloody tree that started all of this.”Something rustles in the distance, creaking like the brittle wind. It crumbles away with a whisper, hissing as another part of Eden returns to sand.Or, Eden does not go quietly in a single night.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: a light dusting of snow [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564759
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Written for _Day 7: Silent Night_ from the [Advent Calendar 2019](https://drawlight.tumblr.com/post/188869931294) by [drawlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawlight/pseuds/drawlight) ! Not the most holiday-themed thing ever, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.

Aziraphale stays in Eden long after Adam and Eve disappear over the horizon. The serpent doesn’t waste any time, dark coils disappearing underneath the newly wet dirt. Maybe he should go after him. If trouble will inevitably follow after the demon’s heels, then perhaps it should be his new duty to thwart Crawly’s mischief. Nip any incidents in the bud. 

_It_ was _your duty_ , a voice says calmly, laced with a tacit edge of venom. Something thumps loudly in his chest. Thundering like the passing storm and growing stronger with each glance towards the sky. _It_ was.

He shakes his head and goes back to sweeping away the dust and fallen leaves. Eden’s verdant life _wails_ , feeling their cells creak and ache for the first time since their conception. The humans took eternity with them and Aziraphale spares a scared thought about what that may say about _his_ fate before cradling their roots with sympathetic hands. 

( _Later, much later, he will be a gardener. Or rather, he will stand by the gate while Ashtoreth storms through the hedges with a temper and threats of incineration. She'll criticize the way he spoils them and sniffs at the rising slug population._

_And still, the garden will grow._ )

“Now thisss is just cruel, angel,” Crawly’s voice hisses from the branches. Aziraphale looks up, unsurprised. Human, again, though with a different set of robes. Long, elegant fingers splayed on rotting bark. Starburst-shaped burns on the very tips, black with a subtle hint of not-quite gold, but it’s what their human eyes can understand with their limited resources. “The humans I can understand. _They_ chose to eat the apple, but the flowers didn’t do anything. The vines, the shrubs. Nevermind the bloody tree that started all of this.”

Something rustles in the distance, creaking like the brittle wind. It crumbles away with a whisper, hissing as another part of Eden returns to sand.

“You left,” Aziraphale says instead of what he really wants to say. _You came back_. _You shouldn’t be here. If They can pierce the sky, who’s to say that angels can’t blot out the sun?_

Crawly’s mouth twists. “I did,” he says like he’s swallowing around something unpleasant. The displeasure passes quick, sliding off with a flick of red hair. “Thought you did the same. How long has it been?”

_Draw your sword_ , that voice commands him. And he thinks about it, fingers flexing around nothing before resting on the bone of his ankle. It might restore him, in their eyes. Redemption paid out with blood—did demons bleed?

Without anything to wield, Aziraphale simply hums and shuffles over to make space. Crawly's eyes soften and the rest of his posture flows down until they're both at the base of the tree, sitting with their legs crossed or knees drawn up.

For a moment, it’s simply quiet. Not even the crickets or cicadas stayed behind to witness this.

“Eden’s going to disappear,” Aziraphale says, perhaps a little unnecessarily. He plays with the hem of his robes, frowning at the way it frays between his fingers. Cloth will rot now if he's not careful. Anything hewn from fig leaves must go even faster and he tries not to think about where they must be now. Whether they've joined everyone else. “It won't be long now.”

“It's been long enough,” Crawly points out. Aziraphale doesn't think he can dispute that so he nods. “You haven't really been here all—” and Crawly doesn’t so much pause as trip over into the next spool of thought without caring for the rest, “ _Why_?”

Aziraphale shrugs. “I need to be here.”

“Are they _punishing_ you?” Crawly asks, all at once vicious and horrified. The demon leans forwards, bright yellow eyes starting to spark and lips parting like the sky moments before they Fell. Brimstone. Bright blue sulphur splashing against his lashes. "For—"

“Doing the bad thing?” Aziraphale supplies, partly trying to be helpful and partly trying to be petty. Giving his sword away. Failing to protect Eden—Adam and Eve and their little one. _Lying_. 

He’s thought about it—there wasn’t much to do beyond tending to Earth’s first tomb. He wiled the hours away, staring at the sun and feeling the moonlight slide over the cusps of his cheeks. 

Who does Crawly think invented getting into trouble? It certainly wasn’t a _demon_.

( _The sword, again. It’s the same as it has always been. Aziraphale does not want it, will never want it, but it’s in his hands again. In his make. He should use it—they’re all fulfilling their purposes now._

_War has even come to roost in the fuller, her scattered remains glittering in the steel, conjuring memories of countless lions that fell to her blade._

To dust _, he will think._ To dust _. And then he will try to remember whether it had really been the Word spoken by Her or if it had simply been written down by human hands, human mind and human interpretation._ )

“Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking about _that_.” Crawly’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “Didn’t mean anything by it, angel. Just some—thinking out loud. Nothing serious. Certainly nothing to worry your pretty head about.” Less a hammer strike and more a pat on his shoulder, trembling with a thick thread of uncertainty. He searches Aziraphale’s face as if he’s trying to read his mind. There’s an awful sort of wrinkle underneath his eye. A crooked and painful thing that warps his features and makes something bubble in his stomach.

Parsing thought from the body—is that something people often do nowadays? The plants have never needed to sift through his expressions though he’s fairly certain they can’t read.

“You don’t have to stay, Crawly.”

“Neither do you.”

“I need to be here,” Aziraphale insists again. Softer. Because he feels as if he _has_ to. “It seems like the kind of thing I need to see through to the end.”

“ _Well_ ,” Crawly says. Holds out his hands, staring into his palms as if expecting something to be there. Some kind of answer—something that he could show Aziraphale to prove something, though _what_ , Aziraphale doesn’t have the energy to even speculate on. But there’s _nothing_.

No, there’s nothing to say at all. 

He looks back at Aziraphale, eyes back to a more tame shade of yellow. The red hair still sprawls down his shoulders in tight ringlets, though it’s much more frazzled and charred from his sudden burst of energy. Aziraphale wonders what it might feel like to card through such long hair and he almost tests out his theory. In fact, it’s only because he’s hidden his hands underneath his knee joint that he avoids that potential embarrassment. 

And then Crawly stays. 

Without another word, another sound. No potentially devastating comment or revelation that Aziraphale will have to carry with him once they part. He just _stays_. Quietly, patiently and perhaps it’s not out of the goodness of his heart ( _no, not yet. They both need a few thousand years before either of them can even approach that with a long stick_ ) but it certainly is _kind_.

It’s another three days before Eden finally falls all the way apart. The walls are fully dashed away and memory decays with the last bits of the stubborn lichen. They’ll find pieces of it again in the grand world beyond them, but for now, on this silent night, an angel and a demon simply watch as Eden becomes nothing more than an echo carried by the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. There's nothing saying this couldn't have happened around the holidays.


End file.
